Lauren Laverne

I kept waiting for the phrase "the trial of Rolf Harris" to stop sounding completely surreal (it didn't). Show less «

Like everyone else, I have followed the Harris case and Savile inquiry with horror. I have also followed with professional interest. Like others working in the media at that time, I have been asked questions by friends outside the industry. Did we know that they were monsters? Wasn't it obvious? How could it not be obvious? Show less «

It was partly the media that let the vileness of Harris [Rolf Harris] and Savile [Sir Jimmy Savile] go unremarked, but now Twitter can help us keep watch. Show less «

Eleven years isn't all that long ago, but it's a lifetime in pop culture. I was 25, happily working in "yoof" TV. I'd arrived a bit late for its golden age (my adventures in the medium took place somewhere between sunset and the gloaming of that particular period), but it was enjoyable enough. Major channels still made music shows for young people to watch. Twitter didn't exist, so you had no idea everyone hated you. Irony was still fashionable, so Rolf, Savile and the rest of the Operation Yewtree Allstars (some artists still TBC on that particular bill, of course) could earn double bubble, working the housewife-friendly matinée shift on daytime TV before hopping in a cab over to shows like ours, where you'd find them nestling on an MDF sofa between, say, Marilyn Manson and Babyshambles. As it turns out, the God of Fuck and post-Britpop's most famous crack smoker had very little on some of our booked-for-lolz, avuncular old geezers in terms of genuine evil. How's that for irony? Show less «